theDIBB - A Southern Adventure August 13th 2018 Day 6

Monday 13th August Day 6

Another beautiful morning in Rotunda West...well I am not sure that is absolutely true this morning at 6.30am as we were woken up by thunder at 4am followed but torrential rain :)

It had stopped by the time we got up at about 6.45, Grace was already out in the kitchen with Nanny and Grandad and I could hear her tipping her cereal in a bowl for her breakfast.

I got up and made some tea and we went and sat under the lanai, the weather was clearing up nicely and it looked like it was going to e a nice day.

I put some eggs on and Daddy and I had those on toast with another cuppa and I also put the percolator on for everyone.
Daddy and Grandad decided to have a hair cut and we had a get out time of 8.45 and it was already 8.15 and they were not moving so I moved them along...this of course made us late and we were all waiting for Daddy and did not leave until 8.55.

We were on our way to the Ellenton Outlets which opened at 10am, the journey was great and we pulled up at 10.15 to a fairly empty car park. We parked up and went to Starbucks first for a pit stop. Grace had a doughnut and the other 3 had a white coffee while I shared a bottle of water with Grace. We went round to Tommy Hilfiger first and had a look through the sale racks. I tried on about 5 things and came out with a jumper and 2 dresses, I was very happy. Daddy got a jumper and I got a discount using the outlet vouchers online.

We were also looking for some trainers for Grace and went over to Nike to have a look, the problem with Grace is that her foot is really narrow. Every time we saw something that may have been OK we changed our minds the minute we got her actual size out the box as they were all massive!

We got out of there and went for a restroom break and then popped into another shop, whose name I forget but you can get loads of wrangler and Lee jeans for very little money. I got a denim skirt for $9.98...bargain of the day!

We found ourselves in Rack Room Shoes and went through the same performance with Grace's trainers...we nearly settled on a pair of Converse, but she decided they were not for her, I am not really sure what we are going to do!
Next door was the Lindt chocolate shop. We chose a few different flavoured ones to take with us and Nanny and Grandad managed to spent $40...$40 on chocolate! Really! I got free 12 truffles from the online vouchers so we did OK lol.

I had a quick run over to Dressbarn while they were in there and this shows promising for future purchases so I will be going back.

A pit stop in to Justice for Grace next and we ended up getting her a T shirt for $25! $25! ? I put my foot down at that but I may go back when she is not with us and get a couple of things for Christmas.

Some people just have to have their picture taken in front of giant cars!

It was 12.45 by now and time to get back in the car and get to the Cheesecake Factory which is at The Mall at UTC, Sarasota. This is about a 15-20 minute drive back down the I-75.

We were soon parked up and carrying the chocolate haul (too risky to get it melted in the car!) found our way through Macy's to the restaurant. We could have had a table immediately but with one chair on the end and we really wanted to enjoy our meal and not be cramped so we went for the 20-25 minute wait instead. We spent the time looking in the cheesecake fridge and crying about the number of calories in a cheesecake, we even spoke to another couple from the UK and they couldn't believe that was the number of calories for one slice! Ha ha, they are all at least 1000 calories, but calories don't count on holiday do they?

We were soon seated, I am not sure exactly how long it was but it didn't seem too long. We had a nice table for 6 in a corner so we had plenty of room and I am glad we waited.

It took ages for us to decide what to have and I am not going to list everything but everyone really enjoyed what they had. As I said yesterday the no starter or alcohol rule did not apply today but Grandad was the only one to have a starter, in fact he had 2? ! And we all had alcohol except Grace and daddy who was the designated driver.

It was an exceptional meal and the server Laura was excellent. With the tip the bill came to $240. Worth every penny :)

We were soon making our way back through Macy's where I managed to grab a free moisturiser sample from the Clinique counter and Grandad managed to try on a rather fetching jacket :) :)

We made a stop in Publix for ice cream and some squash for Grace, we got a bottle of Robinsons which sets us back nearly $5...we should bring it with us really! I ran in and got this as well as some milk just for quickness otherwise we spend another half hr looking at all the stuff we looked at yesterday!

We were back indoors and out by the pool at 4.45 and had a lovely 2 hours out there messing about in the pool and relaxing, no thunderstorms today, it has been really lovely.
Grace had a pizza and then we headed in for showers and a relax in front of the TV.

I took Grace to bed at 8pm and our plan now is to have a drink and some cheesecake outside with a drink until it's time to crash, I will finish this now though so I can go and relax.

Tomorrow we plan to check out the beach, I know the red tide is bad there so I know we will not spend time but we want to see for ourselves.

Thanks for reading and I will see you tomorrow :)